Women Who Stay, 8

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7

________

As we ate, I thought that Eleanor's advice was right. Letting Janie lead was productive, even if it chafed. I'd suspected from the start that Janie was different from the Women Who Stayed. I now felt she was different from anyone else I'd ever spoken with, let alone interviewed. She had more to say, and she wouldn't be bullied into it.

Janie finished her omelet and tilted her head. "In revisiting my childhood, it occurs to me that I lied to you yesterday. You asked if we were poor. I said we weren't, but that isn't precisely true. My father earned well as an ad man and always kept me fed and clothed, but he was punishingly frugal. In some ways, it felt like he never left the Great Depression. He held a deep fear of financial institutions. When he passed, I had to beg Antonio to pay for the funeral. Grovel. There was nothing in Pa's accounts to cover it." A sip of coffee. A napkin dab that covered a smile. "Imagine my surprise, while cleaning out his spartan little house, at finding over $500,000 squirreled away."

I didn't have to feign my shock. "In the 70's?"

"'87. He held on far longer than he should have."

"What did you do with the money?"

"In your notes, I spied a question mark next to the separation of our thrift stores. How did you think I did it?"

"It was shortly before your first divorce filing. I assumed it was in response to marital tension, or some sort of preemptive financial maneuvering."

She shrugged. "Well, yes, there was tension, but it had little to do with the business. But it... you're right, it did affect Second Story. More accurately, it affected Antonio. But that was later." She huffed in frustration, becoming tense and twitchy. "It was a confusing time. I'm finding it difficult to unravel cause and effect."

"Could I ask some questions? I'm good at getting to the bottom of things."

She narrowed her eyes. "Yes, but go gently."

"Were you active in the business before you found the money? Or was it Antonio's show?"

"Antonio was the driving force in the beginning, after the debacle with the BHI." She raised a finger and waggled it. "And don't you dare go sniffing after that, not yet.

"When we opened in 1979, I was far too busy with Jacob, then Annabelle, to do more than watch the register while he went picking. But once the children were off to school in, oh, '85 that would be, I took more on. He'd expanded by then. Six stores. Too much for one man, even one with a business degree. Things were falling through the cracks."

"How badly?"

She laughed coldly. "To the tune of almost a hundred thousand in back taxes." I whistled. "Not to mention the mortgage. I was just about losing my mind before I found that money.

"I also was getting broody again. The children had long left that perfect swaddling age. They no longer wanted bedtime stories and crusts cut off their sandwiches. So I told him: that was my price. If he wanted me to lift him out of the hole he'd dug, I needed assurances. I needed my name on half of the business, that he'd stay out of, and I needed another baby. He agreed to the business easily. Gordon, well, that he struggled with."

"In what way?"

She looked around the diner uneasily. "Well, he found it hard to... perform. And again, I'll ask you to keep your curiosity to yourself. We'll get there."

________

Read on to Chapter 9